LuMini rings worked fine on my arduino, bought a LUMIDRIVE, they flashed and havent worked since

Components & Accessories LEDs
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I am not much of a coder but i am trying to light a sculpture from the inside with addressable LEDs to make an art project more dynamic, and have run into some problems. I manufactured components for several years so i am confident in my physical build (not so much the code) but the following happened while attempting to recreate the results in the LUMIDRIVE hook up guide tutorial:

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/lu … xREALw_wcB

As i attempted to run the code for the first time my beautiful LUMINI rings (i had become very attached to these in the few days id owned them) flashed very bright for about a second, only about halfway around the circle each and then both shut off, and I have not been able to get any sort of response out of them since.

Minutes before this test I had the same 3 inch and a one inch Lumini LED ring daisy chained together and attached to an arduino UNO, and was able to make a simple chain of lights go around the rings, change colors and change speeds with an <Adafruit_DotStar.h> tutorial i followed online. everything seemed functional. after my LUMIDRIVE experiment I cannot light the lumini rings with either microcontroller

Im fairly sure i followed the LUMIDRIVE tutorial to the letter, I am mostly curious if there are some tests i can do to find out the following:

1: are my lumini rings ruined? ??? are there tests i can perform to find out? This is my main worry I really loved them

2: Is the LUMIDRIVE functioning correctly? is there a way i can check for correct output with a multimeter, or something like that? As i said my arduino was running both LUMINI rings beautifully minutes before i attempted to move to the lumidrive

3: How do I assure that if they are ruined i never do this again? ie proper resistors or some sort of fuse? as an art student i cant be blowing up components and still afford to finish projects haha

4: If I somehow damaged the LUMINI rings does that mean they are just worthless? Or is there some sort of recycling process? I am hoping i didnt just turn 80 beautiful APA102-2020s into a pile of burnt out lights.

again, I went to art school and am stepping out of my comfort zone attempting to add light to sculpture. I had a few color changing LEDs run by an arduino on my last project and all Sparkfuns help and support made that so easy that I decided to try addressable strips, this is all very new and slightly overwhelming to me so be gentle! haha

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Hi Bobstomps,

Sorry to hear your LuMini Ring LEDs aren’t working properly. It is hard to say whether or not the LuMini rings are permanently damaged without a bit more information on the circuit you had them in. First, can you please take a few photos of both sides of your LuMini Rings as well as how you have/had them hooked up to the LumiDrive? Next, how were you powering the LumiDrive when you were running the first test, USB, battery or an external power supply?

As for checking the LumiDrive’s functionality, it’s a bit difficult to watch the signal lines but you can test the voltage across the connector pins labeled RED (Vin) and YLW (Ground) with a multimeter. When the LumiDrive is powered, this should be between 3.3-5V depending on how you are powering it. Similarly, you can test for voltage between 5V and GND on your LuMini Rings with power applied (or you can test for a short to ground when unpowered either by measuring the resistance across those pins or using the diode test function).

As for preventing this in from happening in the future, we’ll need the information I requested above to see what may have happened and how to take precautions to protect your LuMini Rings.